Whether I’m writing as a journalist, essayist, or cultural critic, the stories I find most compelling are those that capture the profound tension of people trying to navigate forces much larger than themselves. Through finding the pressure points where personal actions can lead to systemic change — political, economic, ecological — writing is a powerful engine for taking problems of mind-boggling scale and making them feel personal.

After I earned my Master of Fine Arts in Fiction from Columbia University, I worked for several years as a fact-checker at GQ, Harper’s Magazine, and New York Magazine. Since 2020 I’ve been a full-time writer for a variety of national magazines and newspapers, work that culminated in my first book, American Oasis: Finding the Future in the Cities of the Southwest, out now from Pantheon.

I grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and currently reside in Cambridge, Massachusetts.